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Our Program
At Arkana, we create the space for you to get in touch with your truth, opening your path for deeper meaning and greater fulfillment in your life. We work with ancestral medicines such as Ayahuasca, San Pedro, Bufo Alvarius, Rapé , using the traditional practices of the indigenous cultures of the Peruvian Amazon. We currently operate two centers in Peru, one in the Peruvian Amazon and a second one in the Sacred Valley (close to Machu Picchu), and one in Mexico, the choice is yours.
With great respect for the plants and the knowledge and healing that comes with them, our lineage of Shipibo shamans set the stage for truly deep and profound healing. Awaken your inner power through their sacred and powerful icaros (healing songs), and discover your connection to all things by exploring some of the 2.2 million hectare Pacaya Samiria National Reserve which is our backyard. Nourish your body and soul with fresh, clean, delicious meals that promote your Ayahuasca experience, and integrate healthy habits into your routine with our yoga classes and extensive selection of gym equipment for all levels. We believe the health of physical body sets the foundation for the health of the energetic body – Often ignored in this type of spiritual work, we find this to be an important part of the healing process, so you can begin implementing the healthy habits that will carry this work with you into your life back home. Finally, relax your mind and spirit with sound baths, meditations, breathwave sessions, and OM circles, or simply enjoy the tranquil views of both sunrise and sunset from our front porch on the banks of the Ucayali River, surrounded by lush biodiversity and the mesmerizing sounds of the jungle.
Arkana’s exceptional team of highly-trained Shipibo Master Shamans represent an unbroken lineage of plant medicine work. With a combined history of over 70 years of experience working closely with Ayahuasca and other master plant teachers of the jungle, our compassionate healers lovingly share their teachings, healing songs (icaros), capabilities, and knowledge with integrity and honor. We strive to maintain the traditional practices passed down through thousands of years of indigenous Amazonian culture, in order to continue to promote the true purpose and nature of plant medicine work.
Experiencing the medicines with us is a transformative personal journey, and so much more. We also work closely with our local community, the Amazonian village of Libertad, to ensure that our Center can benefit and give back to the people who have so generously let us into their homes and hearts. We create employment opportunities, teach free English classes, provide a space for the ladies to sell their handmade crafts, and assist in construction projects, among other things. Our latest endeavor is outfitting the entire village with free solar panels, so every house can have light and electricity. When you join us, you are helping the rainforest and the Amazon communities that live here.
Guests that come to our Center often say they feel like “part of the family” with us – that’s no coincidence, as we are one big family at Arkana! The people that are with you throughout your experience can simply facilitate your own healing journey or become an integral part of it. Our experienced, loving, and professional team of caregivers welcomes you to join our tribe, where we strive to make you feel at home and at ease, supported and cared for with all the love and compassion that is at the core of the plant medicines and people we work with.
Ayahuasca is a powerful medicine that offers us the opportunity to understand our true nature, by shining a light onto our darkness, and holding a mirror up to our fears, negative thought patterns, and self-limiting beliefs. We provide the environment and expertise of a team of highly skilled, warm, compassionate Shamans and facilitators to guide you through the process of awakening, of choosing differently, healing, and expanding. It is a slow but steady path towards freedom – from fear, from illusion, from self-constructed boundaries – resulting in a lighter, brighter, more authentic self, and the full experience of love. It is our honor to help you on this most fulfilling of all journeys: the journey back home.
We look forward to having you with us!
Lots of Love,
The Team
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NewLife2020
February 28, 2020 at 2:44 pmI am a U.S Army Veteran that was struggling with my own demons, single father, just divorced with 2 kids and mentally 6 feet under. There was nothing that the average human could do to pull me out of this mental state of mind. A friend told me about Ayahuasca and after doing my research I booked the 7 Day Sacred Valley Retreat. I was very open minded and open hearted as I had nothing else to give other than myself, what more did I have to lose? Long story short, the Arkana Retreat and their team are beyond anything I could ever imagine. They gave me the opportunity to literally rebirth my mind in seeing life with a new opportunity and to appreciate it from a different perspective. My experience was definitely priceless. Thank you Arkana Family for giving me this opportunity!
Niko HugLife
February 27, 2020 at 7:53 pmI attended a 14-day intensive ayahuasca retreat at the Arkana Spiritual Center in the amazon of Peru. I can only describe my individual experience as a fierce and magical life transformation. I would recommend this place to anyone who would like to make a spiritual break through. Also, for individuals who may have some unresolved trauma issues. I chose the Arkana Spiritual Center because it had a greater variety of medicines than other places during my research. Upon arrival I was properly greeted with instructions and integrated with the rest of my retreat group. Our retreat group consisted of approximately 18 personnel from all different walks of life. This made our interactions unique and engrossing. The amazon’s atmosphere was very therapeutic, photogenic, mesmerizing, safe, and relaxing. To sum it up, I would describe the environment and aura as a human’s paradise. Also, you are provided with a healthy diet to aid the plant medicine intake. Let me tell ya!! Whoever thought that healthy food was nasty, then this meal plan will certainly change your mind. The food at Arkana was finger licking good every day. During down time you have the option to attend several different planned activities such as, facilitated meditations, boat tours, fishing, swimming, feeding the monkeys bananas, hiking and holding the amazon’s sloths. All the events were planned and organized in a timely and professional manner.
Mother Ayahuasca gave me a spiritual revelation. My past traumas had prompted me to build a fortress around my sensitivities. The name of that fortress was called “ego”. My misconception was that the ego is necessity designed to protect a human’s emotional infrastructure. Mother Ayahuasca has shown me that I become free of chaos the moment that I release the space that the ego holds. However, losing control was has proven to be my most challenging task. George Addair once stated that “everything you ever wanted is on the other side of fear”. Although, the fragile inner me is still a work in progress, Mother Ayahuasca has made me a by far better human being. I am grateful for the work that the shamans provided in aid of the plant medicine during my healing process. Most people don’t realize that the work that the shamans put in is very vigorous on their individual being. In retrospect, they are extremely dedicated miracle healers and it is a blessing to be touched by their magic.
Another medicine that I explored is called Sapo, which contains 5 MeO DMT. It known as the God or spirit molecule. I experienced an extreme state of happiness and love. The medicine infiltrated the draw bridge of my castle that guarded the gateway to my heart. I immediately became engulfed in love once the medicine took effect. It made me feel like a natural woman, as I began to nurture all the beautiful spirits around me. A lot of hugging and cradling took place in that space. It felt wonderful to embrace love again as epitome of nirvana and I mingled on the same plane. I have developed the moniker of” HugLife” due to my sapo 5 MeO DMT journey. Aka “The Eternal Hugger”, because I want this feeling forever.
Leaving this serine world was very difficult. It is truly a place where hope becomes reality. A magical healing universe, to sum it up. Thanks again to the shamans at the Arkana Spiritual Center for being our saviors.
yyysaito
February 26, 2020 at 7:58 pmI chose Arkana over many other Ayahuasca retreat centers for two reasons: I wanted to do it in Peru and I wanted to have four ceremonies (most places I looked into offered only three). After a life-changing, most magical week in the Amazon jungle, there is no double that I made an 100% right choice.
The ceremonies blew my mind. Three Peruvian Shamans along with facilitators played and sang Icaros all night long in pitch black darkness while mother Aya did work on us. We all shared our experiences in the group share time the next morning. Some had beautiful experience, some difficult, some extremely difficult. I particularly had two very difficult experiences. Without the help of the Shamans and facilitators of Arkana as well as my dear friends (who were total strangers only a few days ago) who were there for me I would not have been able to make it through.
Just in a week, I had life-changing epiphanies and made lifelong friends. I am forever thankful to Arkana. I miss the jungle and my jungle family. I know I will go back there soon.
uwforester
February 25, 2020 at 8:49 pmI spent 3 weeks with this beautiful spiritual family. It’s hard to describe my experience in words but I’ll do my best. Outside of the birth of my 2 daughters this was the most profound experience of my life. Since I can remember I have struggles with feelings of self worth, at 4 I tried to hang myself with yarn from my doorknob, that was the 1st of many suicidal thoughts during my first 14 or so years. In my late 20’s/30s I hated my body, I was anorexic and then developed bulimia which put me in the hospital in 2015. It’s been 5 years since I binged and purged and even though the physical side of that disease was over the emotional/psychological side still had a hold on me…until now.
I showed up lost, hopeful, anxious and excited for the new chapter in my life. A chapter that needed to start out with feelings of love and gratitude for myself and others, my heart filled with love and the willing acceptance of help from Arkana staff, facilitators, shamans, the owner himself as well as the other spiritual warriors I met during my time there. What an amazing group of individuals that were all conspiring to make my life better than when I showed up.
The people surrounding you and participating in the ceremonies become family. There is no other way of describing it, and not a broken family, but one that was built on love first with no extraneous baggage. I made lifelong friends in just one week!
I had the pleasure of meeting some of the greatest teachers, both inside and outside of myself. In one amazing piece of magic Maestra Justina performed spiritual surgery to remove a negative energy blockage that had plagued me for sum 25+ years as chronic lower back pain. During the ceremony the energy moved from my lower back into my stomach area and was trying to “get away” from Justina. She was able to remove this blockage and my lower back pain has not returned – it’s been 3 weeks now! I knew I was in the presence of something incredible and magical and beyond understanding.
So how do I feel now? Every day I am reminded to keep my heart wide open for myself and for everyone around me, for we are all part of the divine and divinity lives within us. Our spirits are always connected and separation is only a construct of our egos, stories, and self doubt. I believe my life has changed, people say I have a glow, my children are happier than ever and I have re-learned play, happiness and creativity. Am I blissed out and unable to integrate back into a normal life – sure. But it’s not a normal life anymore, its an extraordinary one. One filled with life and love and happiness.
Thanks you Arkana, Jose, Coleman, Theo, and all the shamans and staff, you are truly special and I will never forget my re-birth and how this experience filled my heart with love and joy.
I leave you with a haiku.
Re-birth day, grateful
Re-learning play, happiness
Heart bursting with love
I’ll be back!
TommyG
February 24, 2020 at 11:08 pmI visited the Arkana spiritual centre sacred valley location in early February and wanted to wait a couple of weeks to write this review to ensure that the afterglow that typically follows an ayahuasca experience didn’t inflate my review.
I can say with 100% confidence that my opinion today is just as strong as it was when I left Arkana.
Everything about the experience is top notch. The facilitators are excellent and clearly experienced dealing with difficult situations. We were also quite fortunate to have maestra Justina with us that week. Never have I felt so much spiritual energy from someone. Likewise, the other shamans we had at Arkana that week oozed spirituality and are clearly masters of their craft.
I personally had a rather rough first evening, seeing a lot of family / ancestral trauma and not being quite prepared for what I saw. Nonetheless, the shamans and facilitators here made me feel safe and allowed me to fully explore the depths of my family trauma. They created a safe space where there was no judgment and all members of our group were able to connect, feel safe and secure and explore our respective intentions. And as difficult a trip you may experience you never feel alone and can sense their presence supporting you, almost as they are holding your hand while mother ayahuasca shows you what you need to see.
The food and accommodations were excellent. Also, the tours included in the package complemented the experience with our guide, Raphael, providing some much needed perspective on life and supporting our integration in the process.
This set up a beautiful week for me where I was able to deal with some deeply held resentment toward my parents that started in my childhood and give me some strong tools I can use going forward to continue my self development and healing.
I also highly recommend the optional Sapo 5-m-e-o experience. The intensity of that experience, while brief, was one of the most powerful experiences I’ve had in my life. I felt like I was finally able to be honest with myself and others about who I am and let go of so much pain I had been carrying for much of my teenage and adult life. Truly a life changing experience and worth the investment.
My thanks to José for creating this experience and sharing it with the world. Gracias José!